Remember George is very busy, doing lots of things besides finishing up his signature series.

I can testify (on a much smaller scale of course) that it is hard to keep plugging away on the "great universal theme." You need breaks.

Besides George himself has been a bit snippy to those who protest too much about his work methods. We don't want him mad at us.

Sure, but he's gone to two years between books for the first three, to five (for book 4) and six (for book 5). I am a big fan of the series but Martin is not a young man... and I'm afraid he's going to do another Robert Jordan.